Getting in front of its next-generation PSP, not due until year's end, Sony today announced it's slashing the price of its PlayStation Portable gaming handheld. Starting Sunday, February 27, you'll be able to pick up a PSP-3000 (that's the standard version with UMD drive) for $130, a nearly 25 percent drop from the original $170.

Last October, Sony dropped its slide-top, spindle-free, downloads-only PSP Go from $250 to $200. Still too expensive for my money, but then the Go never grabbed me anyway. Final Fantasy Tactics, one of my favorites, isn't available as a downloadable game, and with the Go's tiny 3.8-inch screen, playing the sort of 4:3 format PSOne games I'm into on the device, e.g. Final Fantasy's VII, VIII, and IX, simply isn't happening.

The upside of buying a PSP-3000 now is that any games you purchase as downloads should work with the NGP when it hits around the holidays. The same applies to the PSPgo, of course, but why pay $70 more for the PSP-3000's smaller, less functionally appealing shadow?